


there should be stars for great wars like ours

by centralperks



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Seven Deadly Sins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 22:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14342655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centralperks/pseuds/centralperks
Summary: there ought to be awards, and plenty of champagne for the survivors.----The lines were so blurred sometimes, so confusing, that she was tied to him because of the twists they made on ice with blades strapped to their boots, and yet over time it had spiraled into a life lived in each other’s pockets.





	there should be stars for great wars like ours

* * *

_2011 - Wrath_

Tessa was late.

She was hardly (never) late, always punctual, always ready to go with a ponytail and glossed lips. But today, after a long day at the rink where the straight-line lift had just not been working, and where Marina’s twisted frown appeared more than usual, she had all but collapsed on her bed when she got home. And now she was still in the same black sweater from training, shoving clothes into her overnight bag and trying to ignore Scott’s honking from outside. A lick of annoyance sparked in her belly as she listened and zipped her toothbrush in her bag.

Her cell phone rang, the Gilmore Girls theme song blaring through the tiny speakers, and she knew without looking that it was Scott, telling her to hurry up. She hit the red off button, grabbed her keys and flew out the door. Shoving her cell phone in her bag, she chucked it in the back seat of his old pick up truck before climbing in the passenger seat and slamming the door behind her.

“Do you mind _not_ slamming the door maybe?”

“Do you mind _not_ honking at me every four seconds maybe?”

She watched as Scott rolled his eyes and turned his key in the ignition. Putting the car into drive, he began to make his way out of her apartment complex. It was cloudy for a Friday evening, and they had a three hour drive ahead them as they made their way home for the weekend.

“If you were on time, maybe I wouldn’t have to honk.”

Now it was Tessa’s turn to her roll her eyes. “Don’t even start with me and ‘not being on time’, Scott,” she bit back, turning to put her seat belt on. “You’re late for everything, always.” She reached a hand to turn on the radio, fiddling with dials, settling on Kelly Clarkson singing through the speakers.

“I am not listening to this the whole way home,” Scott huffed, reaching to change the station to country.

“And I’m not listening to country the whole way home, Scott,” she retorted. “Change it.”

“What is your problem?” Scott’s knuckles were turning white on the steering wheel, his frown deepening into a scowl.

“I don’t want to listen to country music the whole way home, geez – is that such a crime?” Tessa cried back. “Just put on something else.” The annoyance that began in her stomach began to grow, the lick turning into a flicker that threatened to turn into a flame.

“Whatever, Tessa,” Scott grit out.

It was the use of her full name, bitter and dry to her ears, that made Tessa turn and face the window, curling her arms around her knees. The seats were old and stained with orange High-C from the time she was driving the truck and made a sharp turn, causing Scott to spill, so she wasn’t overly unconcerned with having her pink Nikes resting on them. The irritation in her stomach spread to her chest and her arms and her head, and she was so frustrated with Scott and his breathing and his driving that she wanted to scream.

She pressed her head against the cool plane of the window, watching the highway unfurl around her and the grey clouds move in closer together. It had been a long week of training for the both of them; it felt like a constant game of tug of war, each one stretching their limbs and their minds and their emotions to reach the other person and coming up with frayed ends. They were so different, always, and sometimes they reached the end of their rope. When they were good, they were like trees growing together, meeting in the middle, and when they weren’t, well. They were like this. Frustrated and irritated and exhausted.

Tessa woke to the slam of a car door. She blinked, blearily and half-asleep. Scott’s retreating back was heading towards his front door, and she huffed in annoyance that he had just left her in the car and wondered why he hadn’t dropped her off at her house and – shit. It was Danny’s birthday dinner tonight at the Moirs and she had completely forgotten. Hauling her bag out of the truck, she tripped her way up the front steps and made her way into the home.

The absolute last thing she wanted to do was sit around a table with a ton of people and noise and chaos and make conversation, but the smell and sounds of Scott’s childhood home was comforting to her. The soft yellow paint was peeling off the walls slightly, crooked frames from when him and his brothers were tiny and missing teeth hanging on each corner. She dropped her bag underneath a framed photo of him and her when they were nine and eleven, at the lake. Toeing off her shoes, she padded into the kitchen.

Her parents were already there, and Jordan was as well, home on a break from school and she was relieved to see them. She slid underneath her mother’s arm, who was in conversation with Alma by the stove.

“Hello, honey,” her mother said, placing a kiss on her forehead and giving her a tight squeeze. “I’ve missed you.”

“Me too,” Tessa replied, resting her head on her mother’s shoulder. “It smells great, Alma.”

Alma leaned forward to kiss Tessa’s head as she continued stirring a pot of soup. “Thank you, love. How are you? Holding up okay? How’s Marina been treating you?”

“No more bitchier than she ever is,” Tessa responded, getting a laugh from Alma and a scowl and a “language, Tessa,” from her mother.

The house was full, with Tessa’s family and Scott’s family and family friends and regular friends and just people. Van Morrison was blaring through the speakers, adding more layers of sound to the already noisy home, people crammed in corners and poking out from couches. Alma flicked off the stove and called everyone to long tables that were stuck together to create one giant table in the middle of the dining room, spreading into the kitchen and the living room, and soon chairs were scraping and forks were clattering as everyone settled down to eat.

Tessa chose a spot between her sister and her mother, eyes flicking unconsciously to search for Scott. He came bounding down the stairs a moment later, pulling a grey hoodie over his head and avoiding her gaze.

Dinner was a loud affair, with conversation flying in pieces all around the room, and Tessa was grateful because it meant that she didn’t have to add her voice if others were. Jordan was always the louder one – easy to make conversation, easy to jump into topics and be with people. She was like Scott in that way, Tessa mused, picking at her peas. Scott, true to his form, was talking loudly to his cousins about a recent Leafs game and “that pass, man, and in overtime, too!” Growing up, Tessa had found herself hiding behind both Jordan and Scott many a time, peeking out only when she felt safe, letting them take the lead.

“You okay?” Jordan whispered to her, low enough so not even her mother heard. Tessa nodded her head, “just tired.” Jordan didn’t push her further, but gave her a squeeze of her knee underneath the table.

That was the other thing, thought Tessa, making fork designs in her gravy. Sometimes she felt so small and so quiet, and Scott and Jordan felt so big and loud and fun, like brightly-coloured fireworks on a cloudless night, all flashing purples and greens and oranges, that she wondered why either of them even enjoyed being in her presence. Well, Jordan, of course she had to, she was her sister and that made her Legally Obligated to love Tessa, but Scott – that was different.

They were thrown together when they were young, neither really realizing the full extent of how much their lives would be intertwined (how could they, at seven and nine?) Their partnership had taught her a few things; one of them being that even if people weren’t family they could feel like it, that you could become so comfortable with someone that a three hour car ride in silence didn’t feel awkward but as natural as breathing, that someone’s family could become your family. It taught her about teamwork and cooperation, and respect and loyalty. But without that oval rink filled with white ice, outside of that cold arena where their foundation was laid, Scott had no obligation towards her, which was a fact that she reminded herself of more frequently than she liked to admit.

However, on the flipside of that coin, here she was, in his home on Friday night, pictures of her hanging on his walls, his mother greeting her like a daughter, and her elbows comfortably on the table. The lines were so blurred sometimes, so confusing, that she was tied to him because of the twists they made on ice with blades strapped to their boots and yet over time it had spiraled into a life lived in each other’s pockets, sometimes not knowing where she began and he ended.

After the candles had burnt low and the dessert had turned to crumbs, after Alma had brought back the dinner from earlier and people were picking at it straight from the pans, once the napkins had turned into crumpled snowballs on the table and Tessa’s head had dropped onto Jordan’s shoulder, her mother looked over at her and asked her if she was about ready to go. Tessa nodded sleepily, stretching her neck.

Scott passed by her chair on the way from depositing lipstick stained wineglasses in the sink. He stopped behind her, brushed her hair back from her forehead with his hands and gathered it into a mock ponytail at the nape of her neck. She tipped her head back to look at him, eyes wide and calm.

“Sorry,” he said, “for earlier.”

She shrugged. “Me too.”

He bit his lip. “Do we have to like, talk -”

“No,” she cut him off, “I don’t want to turn this weekend into a therapy session. It’s fine. We’re.” she breathed in sharply through her nose, “we’re tired.”

“Yeah,” he responded, “we are.” He reached down to wrap his arms around her neck and she buried her nose in the crook of his elbow, closing her eyes and burrowing into the soft grey fleece.

The thing was, as she gathered her bag from the front door and followed her family to the car, was the ice and life didn’t co-exist separately, they meshed together, her life was the ice and the ice was her life, and each part bled into each other not like oil and water but like blood and water, running together and impossible to separate.

* * *

  _2014 – Envy_

“Yeah, man, that’s cause she was into you!”

Scott shoved Patrick good-naturedly, grabbing him in a headlock as Tessa slipped off her shoes and stowed them in a plastic bin, along with her carry on, purse, and coat. She handed her passport to the security guy and waited patiently for her turn to walk through the large archway that would determine whether or not the airport officials decided if she would blow up the plane.

“No, she wasn’t,” muttered Patrick, with a slight grin on his face. “She was just checking my luggage in.”

“She wanted to do more than just check your luggage in, dude,” laughed Scott, and the two of them tumbled through security, lost in their own world.

Tessa’s nerves were rattled as she grabbed her stuff on the other side, rolling her suitcase gently behind her as she checked her boarding pass to make sure they were heading to the right gate. This was their last stop before Sochi and she and Scott and their coaches had stopped at a hotel for the night before carrying on. A lot of their Team Canada athletes had met them here, and she spotted Kaitlyn’s blonde head with Andrew as she approached the gate.

She gave her a nod and a smile as she sat down, breathing deeply through her nose. Patrick and Scott were still goofing off; it was a wonder they even made it to the right gate. She didn’t feel like talking to athletes around her, didn’t feel like making small talk. Andrew and Kaitlyn had their heads bent together and it looked like they were taking a picture of their joined hands. Tessa rolled her eyes slightly, quirking a brow at their obvious display of emotions. Scott would never let her take a picture like that, not in a million years. Not that she would, either, and not for the first time did she thank whatever lucky stars put her with Scott as her skating partner. Although Andrew Poje was nice, she really did like him, his presence felt like buttery, pink icing – too much, too sweet.

But watching them, together – it made her insides feel green. Andrew was ever-doting on Kaitlyn, everybody knew that, and in moments when Tessa was feeling vulnerable, it made her wish Scott was beside her.

Except he was currently splitting a bag of salt and vinegar chips with Chiddy, cracking jokes and laughing too loud, and she didn’t want to join them, either.

She sighed, closing her eyes and breathing deeply through her nose, catching a whiff the dusty carpet and stale coffee airport smell.

“Hey, Tess,” said Chiddy. He flopped beside her as she cracked one eye open, then the other. “Can we switch seats for this plane ride? Me and Scott wanna watch that new Godzilla movie together.”

Tessa bit her lip. She liked Patrick, liked him the most actually, out of all their friends. But she was nervous. Nervous for the Games, nervous for the long plane ride, feeling jittery and out of sorts. And even though Scott was covered in salt and vinegar dust and his focus was on Chiddy and their dumb boy movie, she still wanted to sit next to him on the plane.

But she was Tessa Virtue, and she was made of steel on the outside, so she looked at Chiddy and said, “yeah, of course. Can we switch back half way though?” She may be made of steel on the outside, but on the inside she was sometimes made of something more like purple Play-Dough (but only sometimes).

“Sure,” shrugged Chiddy, and him and Scott went back to killing time with jokes and phone games.

Halfway into the plane ride, Tessa uncurled herself from her position and cracked her neck. She had read half of the Virginia Woolf book she had brought, had eaten exactly seven almonds and one orange, listened to an entire loop of Jessie Ware ( _baby in our wildest moments we could be the greatest_ ), and had drifted in and out of sleep. The cabin lights were dimmed, and outside was covered in inky sky. Soft snores were the only sound making its way through the cabin, and Tessa was about to close her eyes again when Patrick came to a stop at her seat.

“Switch?”

She smiled, standing and gathering her blanket around her. “Thanks, Chiddy.”

“No problem. 35C.”

Tessa padded down the aisle in her socked feet, feeling sleepy. Scott was sitting in his seat, earphones in and focused on the screen in front of him, looking up when she reached his side. He didn’t move when she approached, and only when she had settled beside him did he pick a white earbud out of his ear.

“Did you sleep?”

She tilted her head side to side. “Kind of. Not great.” She covered her mouth in a yawn, and he moved the armrest up. “Can I swing my legs on your lap?

Scott nodded, dragging her calves across his legs, her toes skimming the beige interior of the plane. She draped her blanket over her lap, snuggling her head into the back of her airplane seat.

“Want a bud?” Scott asked, looking down at her. Modern Family was playing wordlessly on the screen, Gloria gesturing wildly. Tessa shook her head. “No, I’m gonna try and sleep.”

Scott popped the earbud back in his ear, hand warm on her calves, and Tessa let her forehead drop to the cotton shirt that was stretched over his arm.

Sometime later, minutes or hours, Tessa wasn’t sure, she heard Chiddy approach and whisper to Scott. “What’s up, man? You doing alright?” Tessa kept her eyes shut, too tired to motion that she was, in fact, awake.

“Yeah. Could you get me a Coke, though? I don’t wanna wake Tess.” She felt him brush a hand up and down her knee.

“Sure. She okay?”

Scott shrugged underneath her head. “Think so. Nervous, I’m pretty sure.”

“Yeah, she was quieter than usual today.”

There was a silence for a few moments and then –

“Here, Scott.”

“Thanks.”

Scott’s arm moved and she heard the squeak of the tray being pulled down. “Save me some,” she whispered against his shirt. She peeked on eye open to look at his expression, a curled half smile, eyes rolling.

“Go back to sleep, Tess.”

* * *

 

_2010 – Lust_

The world of figure skating was, depending on Tessa’s mood, a world of glamour and sparkles, edges and wine glasses and low lighting, or a world of gossip, pressure, too many politics, money and lots of old white people. Mostly the latter.

Galas were required after almost every competition, large rooms with lots of people and noise, Norah Jones playing smoothly over the intercoms. People would mill about, pressing lipsticked mouths to the air, missing cheeks by a mile, joining in conversation only when they wanted to hear the sound of their own voices. Tonight’s gala was no different, and as Tessa went to the bar to grab a dry martini, she wished she were back in her hotel room with her pajamas and a movie.

Sighing, she settled herself on a stool, taking a break from “hello, how are you, so good to see you,”’s and propping her arms up on the countertop. Her dress felt tight and itchy against her skin, lacy and cutout. It had looked nice in the mirror and was now reaching the point of uncomfortable. Her heels were digging into her toes, and her eyelashes felt like they might melt off, and what she wouldn’t give to just g –

“Your partner’s Tessa Virtue, right?”

Tessa tilted her head to the sound of her name. It was coming from a tall, blonde man, one she didn’t recognize. He was leaning against the bar, arms crossed, smirk on his face. Scott was standing beside him, ordering, what she couldn’t tell, his brow beginning to furrow.

She was sitting beside a large man who was doing his job of blocking her from their view, and she didn’t intend to make her presence known to the two men. Curling into herself, she moved her head just enough that she could hide behind her arm and still make out half of Scott’s profile.

“Uh – yeah. She is.” She watched as Scott took the drink from the bartender with a muttered, “thanks.”

“She’s like, super hot. That hot pink dress she’s wearing tonight – damn.”

Tessa pressed a hand to her mouth to cover a snort, because a) was this guy a teenager stuck in a grown man’s body, b) did he listen to the sound of his own voice when he talked and c) Scott’s eyebrow was doing that thing that it did when he was getting annoyed.

“Look, man, it’s fine that you think that or whatever, but I don’t know what you want me to say.” Scott brought his beer to his lips, taking a sip. “Like, I’m not gonna stand here and talk about how hot my partner is with you and talk about her clothing choices.”

“Okay, bro, chill. I thought you’d agree, but whatever.”

Tessa watched as Scott’s hand balled into a fist, clearly annoyed with this blonde man and his tendencies to be the Biggest Douche In The World. She twirled her bracelet around her wrist, curious but detached. Scott had had this conversation before with men, she knew, he’d sometimes tell her in an unaffected tone, as if he was discussing with her what cereal he ate for breakfast that morning. She thought it was funny, and was flattered, sometimes, but mostly it wasn’t really something she paid attention to.

“I’ve spent the majority of my life staring at Tessa. I know what she looks like. I’m not blind. And I’m not stupid.”

The man scoffed. “No offense dude, but you kind of are if you’re not hitting that.”

Scott, for all of his twenty-one year old partying, flirting and excessive drinking ways, could be immature that was for sure. He still burped and laughed about it, he still followed Jess around like a puppy because, Tessa knew, he was horny and loved her attention. He still got angry over things that weren’t worth it, still let dumb comments about females and their looks roll off his tongue (though none as dumb as the guy next to him). But if there was one thing Scott was not, was intentionally cruel to women. His mother had raised him better. And he had spent two billion years skating next to her, and she called him out on his comments if they ever swayed too close to objectifying women. And so she knew, before he even said a word, that his next comment would not be pretty.

“Don’t be a tool.” His words were sharp as knives, and Tessa took a sip of her martini, fishing out the olive between her fingers and popping it into her mouth, listening to the next words of Blonde Hulk Man.

“D’you have her number?”

She nearly choked on her olive.

“Dude! What the fuck!” Scott downed the last of his beer and lightly slammed it on the bar top. “Get over yourself.” He walked away, past the large man who was sitting next to her, and Tessa reached out a hand to drop on his forearm to alert him of her presence. He stopped walking when he felt her hand, and she turned on her stool so she was facing him, eyebrow quirked.

“Did you hear all that?” Scott asked, stepping closer to her.

“All I can say is, I certainly hope you got his number for me.”

Scott let out a puff of laugher, fingers grasping the bare skin of her hips. “What kind of straight dude knows what shade of pink this is, anyways?” He brushed his thumb along the fabric of her dress by her ribcage, rolling his eyes. “What an idiot.”

“Hm,” Tessa hummed. “I was quite smitten, actually. You failed your duty as an excellent wingman, Moir.”

Scott crossed his eyes and poked his tongue out at her, making her giggle. He pressed his forehead against hers, so close she could smell the beer on his breath. “I’m so ready to leave.” His eyes are wide and earnest, and that was why they were a good team.

“I’ve been ready to leave since we got here,” Tessa replied. It had been a long time since Scott had initiated any physical contact with her off the ice, and she was surprised, but not willing gain her personal space back. She rested her forearms on his shoulders and tangled her fingers together. “Is Jess meeting you after this?”

“Nah. I’m a free man. Wanna get pizza?”

Tessa bit her lip, thinking of Igor and his comments of, “did you get bulkier, Tessa?” and “I certainly hope that’s the low-fat variety, you have Olympics in three months” and how uncomfortable she’d felt in her dress all night.

“There’s Olympics in a month, and we have to be in top shape,” she responded instead. “Pizza probably isn’t a good idea.”

“One slice isn’t gonna kill you, T, c’mon.” He pulled her off the bench, and she followed him past the stuffy people and the loud lights, into the grand entrance and through the doors into the cool night air. Scott pulled his phone out of his pocket, searching for the closest pizza place, and she let him lead her past dimly lit stores and underground parking lots to a beaten down pizza parlour.

The floor was scuffed and worn, and there was stuffing coming out of the seats, and the man behind the counter looked tired and greasy. The fluorescent lights and tinny music coming from the speakers were a harsh constrast from the swanky environment they just left from, but as they settled into a booth with two giant slices of pepperoni pizza, she was the most content she’d been all night.

“How’re your legs?” Scott asked, wiping sauce from his mouth. She had kicked off her heels and was sitting with her legs swung up on the bench, her back against the arm of the booth.

“They hurt,” she replied. “But let’s not talk about it.”

Her legs were the source of the cracks in their partnership, the source of the arguments and the tense conversations and the stilted way they talked to each other more frequently than not these days. But right now, in this hole-in-the-wall pizza place, with Scott next to her, talking like old times, with another National title under their belts, she felt better than she had in months.

Scott mirrored her position, and they were silent for a beat. Finishing off the last of her crust, Tessa looked at him, grinning. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“How do you feel about winning an Olympic gold medal?”

His face split into a grin, one that she hadn’t seen in some time. “Pretty damn good.”

They traipsed back to the hotel, only getting lost once, and for the first time in a long time she felt comfortable enough to slip her arm under his, winding her fingers around his bicep, one she knew better than her own. Scott didn’t complain like he sometimes did, just shoved his hands in his pockets so she was more securely connected.

They met their parents back at the hotel bar, sliding into seats as they asked the two of them how their night was, and they both answered, “not bad, I guess,” at the exact same moment and turned to each other with scrunched noses.

“Jinx, you owe me a Pepsi,” Scott quipped, poking her in the side and she just laughed.

* * *

_2010- Sloth_

“Tess, stop.”

“Tessa. Cut it out.”

“Tess.”

Tessa let out a breath of frustration. “Sorry, I can’t help it.” She was lying on the couch in the basement at her parents place, legs stretched out before her. Scott was sitting on the floor by her polka-dot clad feet, feet that she was pointing skyward and then dropping to the armrest, over and over. The side of her foot scraped the back of Scott’s hair, and when she accidently did it again, he reached out and grabbed her foot.

“It’s like sitting in front of a twelve year old on a plane,” he said, “it’s driving me nuts.”

“I’m trying to stop, I don’t realize I’m doing it.”

It had been only four days since Tessa’s second surgery, and while she had felt a little less nervous this time because at least she knew what to expect, she adopted the same habit of wiggling her feet like she had the last time. She wasn’t aware she was doing it as she lay on the couch; she imagined it was just because she felt restless – all this sitting around and not walking and not skating felt like torture at times.

This time around, determined not to make the same mistakes as they had the first time, Scott had come barging through the door on the first Saturday he had off, bringing hot chocolates and movies. And that was what currently found them lounging in her basement that Saturday evening, watching J Edgar. It was a compromise – it had Leonardo Di Caprio in it for Tessa, and everything else in it for Scott. It actually wasn’t bad either, she had found herself thoroughly lost in the plot until her moving feet had interrupted Scott’s movie watching.

“How much would I have to pay you to go upstairs and grab me a cookie?”

Scott turned to face her, eyebrow quirked. “Really? You can’t wait ‘til after the movie?”

Tessa breathed a sigh, letting her head rest on the pillows as she focused her gaze on the ceiling. “Well, I mean, I could but considering one half of Virtue-Moir is able-bodied and walking, and the other half is couch-bound and potentially not ever going to walk again, I think it’s only fair that –”

“Save your dramatics, Virtch, you’re gonna walk again. You got out of surgery seventy two hours ago,” sighed Scott, hauling himself up from the pillows to make his way upstairs.

“I think you’re the greatest person of all time!” She called up the stairs after him, grinning when he responded good-naturedly, “I think you’re one of the most obnoxious.”

“Obnoxious is a mean word to call a girl who’s legs just got cut open for the benefit of not only her career, but yours as well,” she lamented, eyebrows raised as he handed her a cookie a moment later. He flopped back down on the pillow and blanket nest he had made for himself at her feet, settling in.

“Yeah, well, so is turning your partner into your personal slave,” retorted Scott, turning his attention back to the movie.

“Personally, I think slave labour is the least you could do to thank me.”

He turned to her then, eyes questioning. “Is this like, one of those times where you need me to vocalize my gratitude to you?” Their therapist had walked them through techniques on how to express their feelings to one another. “You may know each other well, but you cannot read each other’s minds,” she had said to them. “You need to be open with communicating what you need from the other person.”

“No,” Tessa replied, breaking her cookie in half and handing it to him, “this is one of those times where I just need you to sit here and be you.” Vocalizing had always been harder for him than for her, and that was the most she could manage for the day on letting him know she was grateful for his presence. And she really didn’t need him to tell her he was thankful to her for getting the surgery.

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, the basement was dark and the TV was shut off. Blinking a few times and stretching, her eyes landed on the lump on the floor beside her.

Scott had moved his pillows so they were next to her head; his frame parallel to hers on the floor. He was on his back, face tilted towards her, one arm flung over his head and the other on his stomach. He was covered in blankets from the waist down, breathing low and deep, dead to the world.

Tessa watched him breathe for a moment, eyelashes like lace against his cheekbones. He looked younger in sleep, less like the twenty-three year old and more like the ten year old who she had skated with so long ago. A memory flooded to her without warning, from a time when they were little and she had fallen on the ice.

_“You okay, Tess?” A tiny Scott had asked, looking at her expectantly. "No broken bones?"_

_Tessa bit her lip to keep the tears from sliding down her cheeks – no way was she going to cry in front of Scott. She took his outstretched hand and let him pull her up, straightening her shoulders and dusting powdery ice off her skating pants._

  
_“I – I don’t think so,” Tessa said, clutching her elbow. The ice was her favourite place to be and yet – ouch. Sometimes it hurt._

_“It would be cool if you did have a broken bone though – imagine if your arm just snapped off and was dangling from its socket!”_

_“Gross, Scott,” she mumbled, but her lips twitched involuntarily as she dug her toe pick into the ice._

_“C’mon,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s try again,” and he began to lead her through the steps once more._

Tessa reached out a hand and rested a finger on Scott’s chest; why, she wasn’t sure. He was solid, warm, and real underneath her index, her hand rising and falling with the beat of his heart. And still next to her.

* * *

 

_2013 - Gluttony_

“It’s not normal, Kate, is what I’m trying to tell you.”

Tessa was in her bathroom getting ready for bed, brushing her teeth as she squinted tired eyes in the mirror. She could hear her parents from her room, having a conversation in hushed tones, something they did more frequently than not these days. It was only until she heard her name as she spit green foam into the sink that she ventured out into the hallway.

She was home for the weekend, home in London, but the house was quiet without her siblings and she found herself bored and unoccupied. She tried to enjoy the down time, reading and hanging out with her mother, but even though it had been less than forty eight hours since she had been on the ice, she missed skating.

Creeping into the hallway, she stopped just outside her parents’ door, pressing an ear to the wall to hear their conversation more clearly.

“I’m not being dramatic, Kate – it’s unhealthy. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t see what you’re so up in arms about. They’ve been skating together since they were kids and you’ve never been this upset about it.”

A slam of the drawer. “I wasn’t happy she moved with him to Canton, in case you don’t remember.”

“I do, but you let that go; that was more about Tessa leaving home than skating with Scott.”

A frustrated sigh. “It’s their skating – their new routine with their black costumes and the way they’re – their new lift – and their marriage counseling and –” her dad broke off. “This is too much.”

“This is skating. This is their world. You know that.”

“But for how long!” Her dad erupted, her mother trying to shush them. “They’re in their twenties now, and pretty soon one of them is going to want to settle down, get married – can they really do that with the other hanging around like, like the way they hang around? Marriage is – they’re gonna end up like –” he broke off again.

“Like what?” Her mom’s response was quiet, and her dad was silent for a moment. “Like who?”

“They can’t have their cake and eat it too.” He paused. “Just forget it.”

Tessa snuck silently down the hall back to her own room, snuggling into her bed and flicking off her lamp. Her stomach was in knots from her parents’ conversation; it was one she knew her family had had before. Her mom would turn to her with worried eyes and say, “Tessa, it’s okay if you and Scott are frustrated at each other. You spend a lot of time together, honey, it’s normal for two people to not always get along.” Or as Jordan liked to more eloquently put it, “you’ve been in a marriage since you were seven years old and it’s kinda fucked you up.”

But it wasn’t anybody’s business, thought Tessa angrily, always. It wasn’t their life. It wasn’t their career. Skating came first, always, and by default then, Scott came first too, because the two were interwoven so thoroughly. Other people were not allowed their opinion on their partnership, they had decided long ago, and that was that. It was just easier that way.

Her phone buzzed next to her on her side table, a text message from Scott.

_We’re going for breakfast tomorrow. I gotta get out of this house._

She smiled, clacking out a reply under her covers. **_My parents are fighting._**

_About what?_

She scraped her teeth against her bottom lip.

**_About us._ **

His response took a little longer to come through, and then –

_Shit. Sorry T._

Another pause.

_I’ll buy you blueberry pancakes tomorrow. Don’t tell Marina._

She grinned against her pillow.

* * *

_2014 - Pride_

They had needed to win. They had needed to win, and they hadn’t, had clutched silver in their hands and tasted its bitterness on their tongues. She could hardly look at Meryl and Charlie and their dumb faces for the rest of Games, could hardly stand to look at anyone, actually. They had gone from the best damn skaters in their field to silver medalists, like a flop sequel to a hit movie. Everyone knows the sequels always suck, so why do they even bother making them?

Tessa Virtue did not come in second place.

She was used to winning, used to hustling and working hard and having it pay off in the end. She was used to people telling her that she and her partner were legendary, they were out-of-this-world incredible, and maybe she did let it get to her head, but only sometimes. Besides, what was the point of being the best if you couldn’t enjoy it?

But they weren’t the best anymore.

Her house was dark, its occupants all asleep. She had crashed at her parents’ house after the Olympics, and four days later she was still holed up here, trying to avoid looking at her medal and staring blankly at walls. She knew she and Scott had decisions to make, press to attend to, people to thank for their support, but she didn’t really care and was doing her best to block out the world.

The clock on her phone let her know that it was one am, and she had given up trying to sleep a long time ago. Making her way downstairs for a glass of water, her phone lit up with a text.

_Open the door._

**_Come around to the back door_** is what she responded, going to unlock the back door that led into the kitchen before continuing into the kitchen on her quest for water. She poured some from the plastic Brita container before setting it back in fridge, hopping up onto the counter while Scott slid open the sliding glass door.

“Hey,” he said, as he turned to face her. His eyes were tired, bruised with purple bags underneath, hair sticking up and all a mess. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He looked like a zombie. He looked exactly how she felt.

She stared it him for a moment, blinking owlishly at him in the dark. “Hey.”

“You doing okay?”

“You came all the way here to ask me that?” She picked a piece of loose thread from her sweatshirt’s sleeve, watching it unravel some of the fabric. Hauling her knees up to her chin, she watched him as he moved closer into the kitchen, bracing his hands on the back of a chair at the table.

“No, I –” he ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know why I came.”

She paused before speaking, bringing the glass of water to her lips and taking a slow sip. The light from the moon was the only bit of brightness in the kitchen, making shadows across the room. She studied him, and he studied her, in the darkness of one am. She didn’t have any words left. They had given it everything. She had wrung herself dry, had flung herself in one million different positions around him, literally and physically, and in return he had worked himself to the bone to build strength enough to carry them both, and now they were here, in the kitchen, at one am, in their early twenties, with nothing left to give.

She didn’t want to look at him, sometimes.

“Let’s not fight,” is what she said instead.

“We’re not, Tess.”

“It feels like we might.”

He studied her for a second, head tilted. “I’m too tired to fight anymore.”

She gestured to the fridge. “There’s chocolate in there.”

Scott’s lips quirked up, not a full grin but something closer than what she had seen in days. He opened the door and poked his head in, the light of it causing both of them to squint, and she was grateful when he shut the door, emerging with a giant package of Smarties, a jar of peanut butter, and Oreos. He set them on the counter next to her, and leaned against the cabinets, unscrewing the jar of peanut butter and dipping an Oreo inside the jar and handing it to her.

“Remember when I was twelve and we ate so many of these you threw up?” Tessa asked as she bit into an Oreo.

And finally, finally – Scott laughed. Hard, shoulder shaking, doubling over and grasping his knees laughed. She couldn’t help her giggles from escaping, either, as she watched them, as they laughed over Oreos and their lives and their position in the kitchen.

“How did we end up here, T?” Scott asked after he gasped his last chuckle. He scraped peanut butter on an Oreo for himself, shoving it in his mouth in one shot. She uncurled her legs from the counter and let them dangle against the cabinets, bringing him to stand in between her knees.

“I don’t know,” she replied, hands on his chest. He moved his hands to rest on the countertop beside her, caging her in. “I really don’t know.”

He breathed through his nose, and she could smell the peanut butter on both of them as they stayed there for a moment, not saying a word. Scott brought her in closer, wrapping his arms around her midsection, and she wound hers around his neck, scraping her right fingertips up and down his back. He pressed his mouth into her shoulder, and she could feel it through her sweatshirt.

“Sorry,” he said against her. “For everything.”

She pulled back then, looked him in the eyes, bright and exhausted under dark eyelashes. She put her hands on either side of his neck, fingers in his hair. “I’m not.”

 

* * *

 

_2019 – Greed_

In the end, she doesn’t know how not to commit to him.

 _Maybe that’s what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all._  
_Emily Giffin._

**Author's Note:**

> The title and part of the summary belongs to Sandra Cisneros and her poem "One Last Poem For Richard." I feel guilty for writing RPF, but once this piece started, it wrote itself. Tessa Virtue, I hope you never find this.


End file.
